Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Making the Most

'They're testing me for lung cancer,' says the young woman at the back of church.
I moan in dismayed sympathy.
She says that she has endured a three-week lung infection that has resisted two courses of antibiotics, so her GP has referred her to Accident & Emergency for a chest X-ray. The poor young woman instantly assumed the worst.

I moan again. In alarm. I too have endured a three-week lung infection that has resisted two courses of antibiotics, so my GP has referred me to Accident & Emergency for a chest X-ray. And cancer never crossed my mind.

I sit out the hours in the hospital waiting room. Rationally, I know that there is nothing to worry about, but as I study the posters reminding me to Wake up to Rape, to report my drug problem, to memorise the signs of meningitis and to bear in mind that more people die from hospital-acquired blood clots than breast cancer, AIDS and traffic accidents combined, mortality seems to edge a little closer.

Nurses wire me up to a heart monitor and clamp me to an X-ray machine. They suck blood from a vein. They suck blood from an artery. They dress me in a hospital gown and order a curtained bed. I am bored and I am sanguine. Then they talk of blood clots and tumours and possible overnight stays and I start to think panicked of my children.

They hate the one day in the week that I commute to the office because I am not at the school gate to collect them.

What if I am not there, ever?

They hate it when I'm not there to give them their tea because the Vicar doesn't understand about potato terror.

What if I am not there, ever?

There is no finer father than the Vicar, but he doesn't:
grasp the importance of chocolate treasure hunts in muddy parkland.
know how to make a foolproof laptop out of a Cornflakes packet.
endure three games of Harry Potter Cluedo on the trot.
understand about the invisible shark poised to bite small toes in the local swimming pool.

So what if I am not there, ever?

The doctor fetches another doctor and they prod and they pinch and they pronounce that I have pleurisy. Mortality recedes. The gown is reclaimed. The Vicar brings the Skoda and I am phlegmy with rapture.

I long for the children's naked bath-time brawls that usually enrage me.
I long for the tea-time rows over the single shiny desert spoon.
I long for the clamorous return from school; the hallway clogged with flung shoes and book bags; the landing draped with inexplicably drenched clothing.
I even long for the nightly game of Harry Potter Cluedo.

This New Year I resolved to be a better mother. To feed and talk to and be nice to my children. Today's fleeting uncertainty has enlightened me. Our children don't need us to be better mothers. They just need us, imperfectly, to Be There. And so I consistently shall be - the minute I can be bothered to rise up off sofa.

It's a funny thing isn't it. When you are first in charge of your newborn all you can think and panic about is keeping them alive. What would you do if anything happened to them?! And then suddenly it hits you, your own mortality and what the bloody hell would they do without you? Scary stuff.

Get well soon. And for goodness sake do not get off the sofa, do not pass go, and do not collect £200 and a pair of marigolds.

Firstly I am so glad you dont have cancer and secondly that was a wonderfully written post and you are so spot on - its best that we are good enough mothers and simply are just there with all our impatience and annoyance.

How do you manage to write about such things and remain tastefully witty? I have at least one health scare a year since the kids were born, and it is my second greatest fear that I will die and leave them alone - I never cared two hoots about my health before them. Maybe children are nature's way of making us get healthier - if so it's not working, I drink far more wine than I used to too ;)

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About Me

As a vicar's wife I bake cakes and memorise the parish ailments. As a mother I occasionally feed and occasionally counsel an 11-year-old son and an 13-year-old daughter. As a journalist I am a part-time staff feature writer on The Guardian and a freelancer. Tartan sofa rugs, herbaceous perennials and a nightly lager hold it all together.